Blogs

Multiple reports have surfaced this morning that the Cardinals are trading left tackle Levi Brown to the Steelers at some point today. No word on compensation, but I wouldn’t expect any blockbuster in return. This way, the Cards ease the logjam of offensive linemen on the roster — Bradley Sowell becomes the starting left tackle, and I would guess Nate Potter is the backup LT knowing you have both Earl Watford and Mike Gibson who can play guard.

More importantly, it clears away the constant talk of Brown’s play at left tackle, whether he will improve, and what the Cards will do at that spot. It’s funny that the Cards trade Brown the very week GM Steve Keim said on his radio show Brown played his best game of the season.

Nothing official has been announced yet and I would doubt it will be until Brown passes his physical. But Keim long ago promised to be aggressive with the roster, and it has been clear that, at some point, the Cards were going to try and upgrade from Brown (who is due $6M in salary next season and is still due $3.6M this season.)

UPDATE: On trades after June 1, signing bonus does not accelerate into the current league year, so the Cards will absorb $4.2M in dead Brown signing bonus cap room into the 2014 cap.

UPDATE II: Still not officially announced by Cards and Bruce Arians declined to comment, but the Steelers announced the move on their Twitter feed:

We have traded the Cardinals for OT Levi Brown. Isaiah Green was released to make room. We’re giving up a conditional pick in the deal.

While Levi Brown never played up to our expectations, he was out there every game, never opened his mouth and took all kinds of abuse from us. I wish him the best and hope it works out for us. I guess “next man up” is here to stay this year. Kind of saw this coming when Sowell came to the team and his background with Arians. I guess they were waiting for someone to want him. Also, any interest in Max Starks? Heard he was cut. Does he have anything we want?

Good riddance Levi. There should be a few less false starts now. I had higher hopes for the man, but he just didn’t perform.

@wampag Yes, Adrian Peterson was available. However, in the Cards defense, we had Edgerrin James in the 2nd of a four year deal, so no real need for a RB. Plus, there were major concerns about his knees coming out of college. We desperately needed a tackle at the time and took the best one available. In hindsight, yes we should have taken Peterson, but looking at what we needed at the time, the choice was right.

Darren – I think the cap implications are only the same if someone picks him up after he was cut, because his salary is guaranteed. Basically with the trade, PIT agrees to pay his remaining salary this year, which means it comes off AZ cap. If we cut him and no one picks him up AZ is on hook for remaining bonus and entire salary this year.

Any idea on what the Cards’ plan is for tackles? Looking at the depth chart, we are a little thin with just three. Anyone coming up from the practice squad or are they looking to trade for someone else as well?

Couldn’t have pawned him off on a better team. A blurb from Rotoworld, Ed Bouchette, a sportswriter in Pittsburg, described it as a ‘panic move’ for the Steelers. I hope the Cardinals got some decent compensation for him.

While I hope the Cards get more than a 6 or 7th round pick, I wish the best to Levi Brown. He wasn’t a great tackle, but he did what he could. I guess that’s all anyone could have asked of him. I don’t see the O-line getting any better without him.

First, wow! This was very, very unexpected on my part. Did not see this coming.

He has been on the receiving end of our anger, hatred, venom, bile, disgust and I’m sure I’m forgetting a few more choice words, for a long time now. As far as I recall, he never once lashed out at the fans. Class.

Fare thee well, Brown. He was another player I saw working on his craft almost every time I was in my rehab place for my ACL.

Good luck to you sir. Let’s see what kind of magic Keim weaves in return for Brown.

Wow, if this doesn’t serve as a wake up call for rest of team players nothing else will. Players need to take note that this current coaching staff is not afraid of making changes if players don’t produce or at least show some improvement. Gone are the days of “look at my name, or draft selection number so I won’t be traded.”

We will probably now see Levi go on to be successful with another franchise like most of our other former players and coaches…lol! Still waiting to BA to revolutionize our offense and turn Carson Palmer into another Peyton Manning or Andrew Luck:)

I don’t think its funny at all that Keim said Brown played his best game then he trades him. if in fact that was Brown’s best game I think its brilliant. Sell High is the name of the game. If we get anything above a 7th round pick and a bag of chips its a win for the Cardinals. Stay aggressive.

Yes Levi was bad this year, deserved to be benched but I would have kept him around rest of season for depth because he has played both OT spots. Its not like we are saving money for this year. I would have moved him in the offseason. Lets just hope Sowell can be adequate and get us through the season. Call me crazy but Potter wasn’t bad as a rookie, I know he didnt have a great camp this year.

Levi is best as a run blocker. He should do well in Pittsburgh. Not all draft picks pan out, and some undrafted rookies make the HOF. I like the Arians and Keim accountability factor, and just hope we can get back to relevance again. This is the most I’ve seen this organization care about football in my 22 years as a fan. Go Cards!!

So Stupid, I’ve been a fan since 88 and I’ve owned season tickets ever since. This is a bad move by the Cardinals and all those fans that talk crap about LT Levi Brown will regret it. The offensive line has had its issues yes but Levi Brown is not the issue – everyone wants to blame Levi & the Offensive line yet they don’t look at the QB, WR, TE & the snap counts or the blown routes… The point is there’s a lot of reasons that contribute into the QB getting sacked.

@EricG
The Cardinals reached for Brown. No one rated Brown as a top 10 talent. He wasn”t rated as a top 25 talent. Good football teams take the best available players regardless of position. Especially, when drafting high. Yes, Peterson had some injury concerns coming out of collage but no one doughted his talent and ability to play in the NFL. Whiz and Grimm thought they could couch him up and hoped he would work out. He did not. I vote Steve Keim as NFL GM of the year right now. Go Cards!!!

This trade, while appeasing a frustated fan base, could easily backfire. Arians already implied after week 1 that there was no one better on the roster than Brown to play LT. So why trade him now? And who is Bradley Sowell? Does this really solve our LT situation or just make a bad situation worse?

Still waiting for BA/Keim to assume some accountability…we all know how cheap talk is here in Cardinalville. Of course, when the heat starts getting uncomfortable, blame the players NOT who is suppose to be responsible for the success/failure of the unit. When you go moving players into positions they weren’t signed to play,it seems that the coach has to assume some responsibility for the failure of the desperation move! Good luck to Levi Brown and the Steelers, Why didn’t they just fill this need through the draft or FA?

I agree with all of you who recognized that Levi Brown did his best and never once caused the cardinals organization any problems in the locker room or off the field. I guess by trading him we get to keep someone who would have otherwise been cut with Washington’s return (unless that has already happened and I missed it). I know Levi was being paid a lot of money and, as has been pointed out, the o-line was a bit crowded. Still, I would have liked to have seen Levi at guard to find out if he could have had an impact on our running game. Time to move on and keep going. Good luck to you Levi. And, did I see something today about Skelton signing with the Niners? That can’t be true, can it?

Farewell Levi “Bust” Brown! You are the reason we lost Kurt Warner, because of your subpar play. Levi has had enough time to live up to the hype of being a top pick but could never produce. Tooooo much negative play from him. Actually was a HUGE liability to our quarterbacks.

I am not sure what blame you want to place on BA or Keim. Brown was signed by Graves and Whiz. They gave him an opportunity and Goodwin tried coaching him up. We heard the last few weeks from BA and Goodwin about Browns inability to trust his technique the way he was taught. At some point you have to accept that some players cannot do the job. This is a bottom line business and the tackle protecting the blind side of the QB needs to play at a high level. Brown never has. As I posted on this blog last week, it is not Browns fault he was drafted #5 overall. No pre-draft analist had him rated as a top 20 player coming out. Whiz and Graves reached because Joe Thomas was picked by the Browns before the Cardinals pick. Thomas was who they wanted. They thought they could make Brown a good player and they were wrong. Brown is gone and it is time to move on. I don’t think we will do any worse and we will find out if Sowell or Potter can play.

So much for the ”elite LT” talk Bruce? Keim was lying when he said that Levi had his best game. He wouldn’t have traded him if he weren’t. I just hope Bradley can be better because I don’t think it gets worse than Levi at pass protection honestly. Why the hell did it take so long for our organization to make this move though sheesh. Through the Whisenhunt era and Arians’ era.. I mean I wish him well because I ain’t that type of person that wants the person to do bad but he’s just not good as everybody wanted you to believe he was including fans and Whisenhunt and Arians.

I’m not surprised at all, thanks Levi for all your great plays maybe the Steelers is a better place for you. Lets see what BA has up his sleeve and let him Coach and run the team. Thanks Darren for the updates. Keep up the good job!

Brown has allowed 18 total pressures (four sacks, six hits and eight hurries) in 164 snaps he has been in. That is not good. Levi has looked silly out there this year. I don’t hate the man, I hate his production, or lack thereof. He was a liability.

I think moving on from Levi will be a good thing for both parties. A players “potential” must someday turn into his actual level of play and that never happened for Levi Brown. A players “potential” can also keep a team from trying other people at that spot. Who is to say if he ever will or will not play up to his potential, what is certain is that it will not be here in Arizona – right or wrong – it just won’t. Maybe he goes to Pittsburg and plays lights out – maybe the person coming up behind him does the same here given the chance.

Okay, Brown’s off to Pittsburgh. Does this make the Cardinals a better team in the short- and long-term? In the short-term, because he was the starter for a reason, if only by default (he hadn’t been replaced by either the known play or supposed potential of any of the other back-ups), the Card’s now have to go with second best behind a poor starter. That does not bode well for Carson Palmer and the offense in my estimation. Long-term, the Card’s look to the Draft to pick a quality LT, which means they’ll have to either naturally suck enough to “earn” a high enough pick to select a good enough LT, or else they’ll have to manufacture a trade and give up a ton to get a good enough LT… and then they have to wait until the new LT meets expectations. In a way, I feel this was a move that gave up hope for the offense, at least for the next year or so; I don’t see how Palmer will fare better, receive better protection. I wasn’t a fan of Brown’s, but I don’t know his back-ups well enough because they hadn’t earned the right to play ahead of Brown.

Did Someone…….ANYONE…….Call……BS…..on the Levi Praisers. Seems to ME, the BSers Have TOTAL DISDAIN for the FANS…….Feed’em BS…..That’s ALL they Deserve……..RIGHT?!!!! How about a REVIEW of the LEVI BSers…..Just so NOBODY Forgets………..Yeah, RIGHT!!!!!!!!

Of course. Mathews (yes Hall of Fame lineman Bruce Mathews kid) from A&M is the best choice. Of course Lewan at Michigan would be a nice choice also.

As for Brown, I did not see the trade coming. I knew he would be gone by next year, but surprised.
Colledge is the next to go. Too much money in those two. If cooper was well, I think this move would have happened.

Again, expect a rookie or a run at Verdheer at LT. Cooper at LG, Sendlin at center,
Watford / Faniaka at RG and Massie at RT.

But Sowell is the wild card. If he plays lights out, that would be huge. He has 12 games to show his stuff.

Man this is exciting news. I can see where this team is going. Now get my guy Moch on the field more this week at OLB and let him hunt Cam.

I dont wear jerseys but I might need to get one with Predator on the back.

I doubt Levi is reading this, but I wish him well. As much as I agreed that he did not play up to his potential and apparently lacked passion for the game I hated the venomous comments about him personally, especially by radio hosts (ie, Gambo). You can criticize a player’s play without personally attacking him and it is shameful to tolerate a radio person who is so disrespectful to another person.

With Brown’s and Adam Snyder’s dead money and Fitz’s burgeoning contract — going to be a little tricky to sign all the Card’s one year FAs plus a Patrick Peterson extension next off season.
Some of the higher priced veterans may be not on the team next year.

This is once again another good move for Bruce Arians and Steve Kiem. Brown wasn’t performing at the level he should have been performing at and he was way to inconsistent. another plus is that we got rid of that big contract!
Best of luck to Brown and i hope he succeeds in PIT.

I have a feeling Levi would have been cut after the draft if one of those LT was available. I don’t think Arians expected all 3 gone in the first 4 picks.

Levi should have been gone along time ago; picking up left tackles – or any tackle for that matter – in early rounds of our drafts throughout the past few “administrations” is the reason Levi lasted so long in the first place.

Bad performance always looks better than extremely bad performance.

I hope we can land something between a 4th and a 6th for him.

Here’s to hoping we don’t lead the league is sacks allowed this season.

I would be one of those who questioned BA for saying, “Who else you gonna get?” when he was asked about the LT situation. My answer was “Anyone, anyone can be an improvement.” Now we hear BA saying this in agreement today. I didn’t hear anything about retracting the “elite player” label, but let’s give him KUDOS for stepping up before it’s much too late. I appreciate his frank approach with our media guys. If we can get the Offense going, we can have a whale of a team. Oh yeah, DWash is back, huh? 80,000 of us can’ be wrong on everything.

DARREN:
Keim must be behind this – he will not let this thing fester much longer. Incidentally, it is being reported by the radio guys that Keim was shouting AP, AP back when this all happened in the war room. Can you confirm this?

And, Indeed Levi has sucked it up and said nothing about all this critique. But, he has been paid well, very well to be a class act though he knows he should be on the inside… I wish him a peaceful trek…

Now, do you think the “next man up” thing will put forth an exhaustive effort to keep the QB upright?? Let’s get behind them…. Be well…

Hammy… your assessment of Levi creating Warner’s final retirement is inaccurate. He finally decided to hang it up after a paid headhunter from the Saints took a late blind cheap shot… check it out… Sean Peyton was suspended for such blantant cheating…

hopefully our o-line will be figured by seasons end and we can concentate on next position up,QB and OLB,and from BAs comments last week maybe RB also,probably be lookiing at a DD replacement also,but really we have some nice pieces,just need to gel together.

After years of complaining, I am happy to see Levi Brown off of the Cardinals roster. He is easily the biggest waste of a draft pick by the Cardinals in recent years. The only other pick that could come close to being a waste was the Matt Leinart pick.

Even with Brown gone, I’m still lacking optimism for this O-line. One positive we can pull about this Bradley Sowell guy is that he knows BA’s offensive scheme and has been coached by BA.

Another top draft choice wasted. It remains to be seen if Levi will follow in the footsteps of the top picks that were let go by the Cards and went on to having good or even great seasons elsewhere or if he will prove to be no better than he was here. If you want to understand why the Cards are rarely considered playoff contenders, take a look at their drafts for the past 10 years. You’ll see that in most cases they have taken players in the early rounds who have never panned out (at least not for us). Let’s hope when we get Mr. Cooper back he won’t continue the trend. Btw, I have taken a very close look at the remaining Big Red schedule and my prediction for our record at season’s end is…7-9. Considering it’s Bruce Arians first year and after the disaster of last season, it’s not too bad and will give us a decent draft choice (does that really matter?) next year. Anyway, adios Levi. Good luck in Steeltown.

@George
Correct… Levi has not had a good go of it since being injured, and especially this year, but, to say he’s “not lived up to expectations since day one” is a bit much, and he was a member of the Cardinal family, and, who mostly has been guilty of being from a different era, with a fairly sizeable contract (by Cardinal standars) . As I recall he made a touchdown against the Saints when we played them here in 2010!! What I find worse than Levi’s play is the way Keim and Arians are both so disrespectful and devaluing of their former colleagues and our players in the media and to fans. Such remarks are unprofessional, distasteful and completely lacking in class, and, I am not the only fan who has been bothered by such. “The organization has replaced Levi Brown with________ @ LT, who has been traded to the Steelers for an unspecified draft pick”…nuff said, fans can speculate as to the reasons but the bottom line is that it was an organizational decision and it happened; moving on…Bottom line, this is actually a business with it;s share of internal politics and playing the blame game is self destructive. Quality administrators don’t get caught up in such pettiness but instead make positive changes with little fanfare…results speak louder than words. In this case, it would appear that Levi has served as a convenient scapegoat in a situation where results have fallen short of expectations.
I do have to wonder WHY when the opportunity presented in the draft and Free Agency, the 0-line wasn’t overhauled as advertised was the plan? Since then talent has been out there from teams cutting players but the Cards aren’t buying. The Seahawks are picking up almost all of the 9er cuts; why aren’t we a player in that market? Perhaps Mr. Keim should join the big boys and get at the business of moving this organization forward without remarks about personnel changes. If you look around at the really good GMs (Ozzie Newsom, Mickey Loomis) you will not find them trashing their players in the media, they just move on…

Your assessment of Warner’s final retirement is inaccurate also, Warner himself said recently that he would still be playing if he wasn’t asked to do so much for the team and that it just wore him out mentally. Coach Whiz is to blame that Warner is still not slinging it around in Arizona. Not my opinion, that’s Kurt Warners opinion.

Kurt’s a good guy, but he has given about five different reasons over the years why he retired, and most aren’t even including one — that perhaps his wife and family didn’t want to see him take the shots anymore.

If I had to guess, there was no one thing. I feel confident it wasn’t Levi, since Brown didn’t play left tackle until after Warner retired. I heard the stuff about it being mentally taxing — except the issue I have with that is Warner, like many high-profile QBs, often want that kind of input/control. Don’t forget, Kurt had been hinting at retirement as far back as 2005 — so I don’t think it was any one thing, and I don’t think he was changing his mind regardless of what the Cards would have done.

clesslssy… sorry if I skipped some info in your voluminous post, but I have not heard much about Whiz’ statements that he’s making a change because a different player gives us a better chance to win. This isn’t a tactical slam; if someone said that to you in a business environment, you would take it as “you’re not good enough for this.” That is what BA basically said. He was not personally disrespectful to Levi. And this IS a business… Everyone was railing on this, and regardless of future events, “next man up” was the correct decision. And I wish Levi the very best…his wife seemed OK with the change; he is paid well…

Webster defines “scapegoat”::: a person who is unfairly blamed for something that others have done… Is this really what you want others to think? Your passion for our team is admirable….. Be well…

DARREN: Yes, I am aware of Warner having other priorities and his discussing retirement for a few years. Ministry had been on his mind. But, what I was stating is that the hit/injury he took was the punctuation mark for him retiring. I can hear something like this, “You know what, I just don’t need this; I have another life yet to live.” At one point, he played with a cast on his left arm… And, if I remember correctly, that Saints bounty game the last game he played; Leinart finished that game. It was my gift to cheer from the stands for Warner…He was a true warrior.

Noted: One of the truly classy guys and a superb role model for boys and men. He took the high road in his retirement speech, but later answered candidly when shown proof of the bounty tactics. A good day today to you…. Thanks for clarification…